


you make the world seem small for a time

by corvidbones



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Musical Instruments, safe house era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:42:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25943041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvidbones/pseuds/corvidbones
Summary: While moving into the safe house, Martin happens upon a long since abandoned guitar. It's a reminder of back when he still played.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 12
Kudos: 79





	you make the world seem small for a time

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this the day that Dwelling aired, and finally decided to brush off the dust and finish it. Martin gets to have two (2) nice things during the fearpocalypse, and those things are Jon and a guitar.

There isn't any reason for there to be a guitar in the safe house, leaning untuned and forlorn at the back of the pantry.

After all, it's hard to picture Daisy as someone to sit down with an acoustic and _play_ , the strings a gentle buzz beneath her fingertips, rhythm in hands so calloused and strong. An idle distraction to carry her from the wait of the next chase, the perpetual igniting of the hunt; a secret she'd held back from Jon, in the time they spent together.

Or maybe the guitar didn't belong to her in the first place. It could even have been Basira's, though why it would be here _,_ hidden away in Scotland, is a mystery to Martin. What he knows for certain is that in his search for any canned goods in the house, he'd opened the marred door with a rusty squeak and glanced the neck of a guitar propped up in the pantry's shadows, giving a _huh_ of surprise at the sight.

And then he'd taken stock of the empty shelves, bare as can be, and closed the door.

He hasn't played in a very long time.

Jon doesn't mention it, but his face sets in a furrowed stare whenever he looks to the pantry door. He knows the guitar is there, and he can tell that Martin has been thinking about it, though it isn't clear whether he _Knows_ that or has simply noticed how Martin's gaze drifts towards the door handle as he passes it by. Martin himself isn't too inclined to ask.

He drums his fingers on chair arms, on tables, on the backs of books. He thinks of the songs he spent so many hours practicing, in the years before his mother's illness sunk in with a finality that pulled him back to her in a rush. Before he grew desperate in his struggle to find work, to try and _live_ without collapsing. Before the Institute, and all that entails.

Before he'd ever set eyes on Jon.

The first time he opens the pantry with actual intention to grab the guitar, it's barely five in the morning. There is thunder traveling over the hills, but it's not the deep, cracking sound of a storm that had awoken him, or the rain just beginning to hit the roof. What brought him out of sleep, gasping and drenched in sweat, was Jon shaking his shoulder with no shortage of alarm. He'd said, in a thin voice, that Martin had been muttering and twitching as he dreamed, his skin gone cold when Jon reached out for him. That he was unresponsive to the hand on his face in a way that had made Jon's heart beat so high and fast in his throat.

They've gone through this sort of _sleep-nightmare-shake-reassure_ routine well enough times to know that neither of them are getting back to sleep, for a good while. Which could be an hour, or several, or they might wind up passing out on the couch late into the afternoon. It's hard to tell what kind of morning it'll be, this soon after waking up to a pounding heart and Jon's face bent over his own, trembling fingers hooked in the folds of his shirt. Or the reverse of things, with Martin wrapping Jon's hands in his, trying to ground him as his face twists and his eyes make wild, constant movements beneath their lids.

They have options for these situations, meager as they may be. Martin could make some tea, or far more enticingly, hot chocolate from the tin of cocoa powder he'd nabbed on their last supply run. He could ask Jon to talk to him until they both feel better, or try and pick up a book (they'd purchased a small pile from a thrift in the village, Jon insisting that he check each one Martin reached for _just to make sure_ , which… honestly, was not a bad idea). They even have a newspaper, easily a week out of date by now, but decent enough for flipping through.

This morning, he stands in the unlit kitchen, squinting against the dark. This morning, he opens the pantry with its usual shuddering creak, and reaches for the instrument he knows is waiting there.

He feels the strings first, cool metal biting against his palm, before his fingers are wrapping around the neck and lifting it from its hiding place. He thinks he intends to just… hold it, for a moment. Smooth his hands over the wood, nicked in a few places along the side, but otherwise free of gashes or water damage. It's got a nice, comfortable weight that has him raising it to where it would rest, given the presence of a strap.

Without much thought, he plucks at a string. The resulting twang is enough to make him wince, painfully out of tune, but it also sends a faint thrill up his spine. Even if he can't recall an entire song, there must be bits and pieces of one that he'll remember. He can't have forgotten _everything_ , and it's something for him to work on, at the very least.

The rain outside is heavy and pounding by the time he returns to the bedroom. Jon raises himself on an elbow to watch as Martin climbs back into bed, crossing his legs to set the guitar against them.

"Going to tune that old thing?" Jon says, and _god_ , it isn't fair how a simple sentence like that is enough to knock the air from Martin's lungs (he wouldn't trade it for anything else in the world, he knows). There's a half-pleased, half-flustered smile tugging at his mouth when he replies,

"Think so. It'll be an— _attempt_ at tuning, anyway."

Jon makes a quiet, considering sound at that. He's back to lying on his stomach, head pillowed atop folded arms and facing towards Martin, blanket bunched up at his waist. It's a much calmer sight than the one Martin was greeted with a mere half hour ago, when his eyes had snapped open to the bright glow of the bedside lamp, tilting precariously in its place from Jon's haste to turn it on. So goes a morning for them.

Starting work on the guitar is slow and unsure, at first, but he falls into the rhythm of it after not too long. Check the strings, strum, adjust the connecting peg, strum, and repeat until each chord sounds right. Or as right as Martin can determine with his own ears and without an electric tuner, which does make him pause and wonder, briefly, if Jon would be able to Know if he's tuned it just right.

Not that he'd actually ask him to, tempting as it is. Jon's gaze has fallen to Martin's hands, and it stays there for the following twenty minutes, watching as Martin tries to catch hold of a tune. Every so often Jon will hum, low and carried alongside the hush of his breathing. The sound is an aimless, near-asleep rumble that causes Martin's fingers to hitch, warmth rising to his face. It's as Jon's eyes fall shut that Martin reaches to smooth back the mussed hair at his brow, dark and silk spun gray.

No sunlight has appeared by the time that seven on the dot comes and is gone, the weather reluctant to clear. The guitar is definitely improved from its sad state a few hours prior, and Martin is careful to prop the base on the floor, against the bed, before he turns and lays down beside Jon. His frayed nerves from earlier feel like they've gone somewhere distant, buried far below what can reach him. It's a simple act, now, to pull the blanket up and over his shoulders, to wrap an arm around Jon's sleeping body. Simple, to close his eyes and not shake with muted fear.

"Have you ever tried writing music?" Jon asks, as the two of them are blearily nursing tea at the small kitchen table. It's the last of the ginger, which Jon seems to have taken a strong liking to, and Martin has filed away a mental note to look for more on their next trip to the village shops. The remains of their afternoon breakfast sit at the center of the table on a pair of stacked plates, nothing left but an apple core and a few bites of scrambled egg.

Martin's fingertips tap on the scuffed surface beneath them. "Well, not really?" He says, trying to collect his thoughts. His face scrunches up as he does so, bottom lip sucked between his teeth, and Jon has to take a sip of tea to hide his endeared smile. "Some of my, you know, poetry— there's parts of it that could be used lyrically, for sure. But I've never set out to write a _song_ , or the chords for one."

"Ah," Jon says. The brown of his eyes is obscured by the steam clouding his glasses, mug clasped in hand, and he squints at Martin in a way that's almost teasing. "Is there anything you could play for me? If you would be alright with that, of course."

"I would like to," spills from Martin without hesitation. He thinks that he should be embarrassed by that, probably. It's been years since he last stretched his fingers over the strings of a guitar, played the handful of songs he'd been learning back then, and he knows how out of practice he's bound to be. It'll be too quick and stuttering in bouts, the rhythm an impossible beast to keep hold of. Still, Jon's stare is warm and curious across the table, and Martin feels his hands tuck into themselves. "If you rinse the dishes, I'll grab the guitar."

"Meet you on the couch," Jon says, and Martin's heart is caught in a snare. He crosses to the opposite end of the table, leaning in close to press a kiss against the back of Jon's head, the crown of his skull. Jon makes a tiny noise at the affection, a sigh and then a murmured word that Martin doesn't quite catch.

"Oh, what was that?" He prompts.

" _Sap_ , I said."

But Jon's voice is strangely thick as he speaks, and he doesn't protest when Martin drapes himself over his shoulder to press a smattering of kisses to his angled jaw, the shallow dips of scar tissue on his cheek.

There's no way of knowing if it's been hours or days since the rending of the world— impossible to tell the time, really, when the sky is filled with so much _nothing_ that even your internal clock has been skewed to oblivion.

The house is dark, curtains pulled tight over the windows as the wood creaks like that of a boat at sea. Everything certainly feels unmoored, as though the land itself is nowhere in sight, and that this small, worn home of theirs is minutes from being torn apart in the bellowing wind. It is a cold, dreadful sort of worry. One that scratches at the corners of Martin's mind, bitter and gnawing, until he's driven to search the closets and kitchen for whatever remains he may be able to find.

And he does find something, after enough restless pacing over the floorboards; it had been forgotten in the midst of the ritual, cast aside and waiting at the back of the couch.

He's hesitant to reach for the guitar, nervous and fidgety under his skin. He can't help but picture it bursting apart into centipedes the second he touches it, a many-legged carpet spreading across the floor, up the walls. Or that it might grow a mouth knit with metal strings and snatch off his hand, cutting and visceral. After a few moments of mental wrestling he takes a breath, tells himself that he's being silly (lord, he _hopes_ ), and picks up the guitar.

His fingers fit around the neck, and nothing happens. Nothing explodes in his face, or crawls out to bite him, or sets itself on fire. _All well and good_ , Martin thinks. _Don't think I'd fare too well, being mauled by an acoustic_. The lingering hesitation drains from him as he hefts the guitar's full weight into his grip.

When he pushes open the door to the bedroom, light as he can, his gaze is drawn right to where Jon sits on the edge of the bed. He's turned away from Martin, shoulders visibly tensed under a poorly fit flannel with too-wide sleeves. He hasn't wanted to talk, has been semi-lucid and shivering since the start of all this, and burrowing into Martin is the taut, hopeless muscle memory of being unable to help someone he loves. It isn't a feeling that he intends to let live in him.

"Look what survived," he says. There's a tone of pseudo-cheeriness to it that makes him want to bite his tongue, try those words again, but Jon's already shifted in the direction of his voice. A tilt of his head that means he's aware, listening. "Found it sticking out of the… metaphorical rubble, I suppose."

Martin moves to sit up on the bed, next to Jon, before settling the guitar into a comfortable position. It rests on his leg as he checks the tuning, tightens a couple of pegs. He hears Jon breathe in, and it's the hollow, wooden sound of the body as Martin adjusts it that seems to stir his attention further. He still doesn't respond. Martin doesn't expect him to.

He starts playing with no idea of where he's going with it, a melody that is changing and nameless. His fingertips had gone red and sore after he'd played for Jon that afternoon on the couch, regretfully lacking a pick, and he had later wondered aloud how long it might take him to form callouses. _"Just don't overdo it,"_ Jon had said, _"there's no need to rush, and who knows? It's possible that you'll be able to charm Basira into mailing us a pick, along with the next box of statements."_ A sentiment to which Martin had pointedly scoffed.

The entire time that Martin had spent trying to remember a certain song, Jon had struggled to school his features out of a curled, fond look that touched all the way to his eyes, narrowed as they went when his glasses were off. It was the one song Martin had ended up muttering the lyrics of, in an attempt to summon the chords from wherever they lurked in his head; _'so I'll clear the road, the gravel, and the thornbush in your path_ _...'_

He wonders, now, if it's even possible for him to develop callouses anymore. Too early to tell how this world is expected to function, to know how it reacts to bodies and injuries and other growing things, broadly speaking— when he hasn't stepped foot outside since the morning he'd felt his own heart jerk to a stop, staring down at where Jon lay sprawled on the floor. Seen the blood that had poured from his nose in dark, heavy trails, coating his slackened hands.

There's a groan from the ceiling beams above them, and Martin watches Jon shudder from the corner of his eye. Continues to brush at the guitar strings as Jon's right hand tightens in the folds of the blanket he's sat on, appearing to war with himself for six seconds, eight, ten.

"Come here," Martin says, before Jon can dismiss the notion that he's deserving of this singular comfort. "Please, Jon?"

And that he can't bear to ignore. It's a slight shock, how the trembling of Jon's muscles can be felt through both layers of their clothes, his body fever-warm as he slumps against Martin's side. Tucks in closer, until his breath is ruffling Martin's hair where it's grown a short ways past his ear.

"Thank you," Martin sighs, burying his nose in Jon's hair. The guitar lies slack across his knees.

Jon swallows before opening his mouth to speak, on the very edge of being too quiet to hear.

"It's... getting easier," he says in an exhale, "to remember where— where I-I am."

"That's a _good_ thing, isn't it?" Martin says, almost tentative. An ache is busy weaving itself through his chest. "Good, that you're not just… lost in the wilderness, somewhere."

"I— don't know, Martin," Jon says, "I've tried to look, but it feels as if I can't reach the answer from here, can't _See_ —"

He's cut off from his agitation as Martin presses a kiss into his hair, palm curving over his shirt until it reaches the bottom of his rib cage. Traces his pulse under the empty slot where the last one is missing, fingertips making a gentle, tapping beat.

"It's alright," Martin says, his voice muffled against Jon's skull. "You don't… don't have to look, if it hurts you."

The laugh that touches Martin's neck is a choked, featherlight thing. "I can't seem to do anything _else_ ," Jon whispers. His hand twists where it's nested in the soft, rumpled fabric of Martin's jumper.

There's a carved out feeling in Martin's throat. He reaches for the neck of the guitar blindly, eyes closed. Retrieves his arm from where it was laced around Jon, shifting their positions until he can hold the guitar proper, and says, "Have you got any requests?"

A twitch to Jon's jaw, and then he's smiling. A small, crooked expression that makes sorrow and love burn down to Martin's marrow. He doesn't know how long it's been, cannot hope to understand what it is that steals Jon's mind so far away from this shelter of theirs, but they're _alive_ , and that has got to count for something. He's sure of it, because it already does.

He begins strumming a C, drawing up memories of the song he wants to play. Tilts his cheek so that it rests at the side of Jon's head, and doesn't think of anything except for the metal under his fingers, the chords gradually taking shape. Hums the words in a breath, and focuses on the warmth of Jon lying still beside him. It is an uneasy contentment, but for the time being, it's enough.

**Author's Note:**

> The song lyrics referenced by Martin are from Lion's Mane by Iron & Wine, and though it's left vague the song at the end is intended as The Moon is Down by Radical Face, if you'd like to give either a listen.
> 
> Comments and kudos are loved!  
> You can find me on tumblr @corvidbones.


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